Synthesising Gasoline

It is possible to produce synthetic gasoline. It is known as Fischer-Tropsch fuels, syn-fuel, or coal gasification. It is made from coal but with the bad stuff stripped out of it. It is a very clean burning fuel. There are companies making it today. It is an expensive process, and has been around since the 1920's. The discovery of cheap oil put it on the back burner. It would be an excellent technology to pursue to decrease our dependence on foreign oil

Read more about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel

And now we have cars that run on coal without the conversion. They are called electric cars. Burn coal, make electricity, charge your electric car with it. Probably cheaper in the long run. The thing about synthesizing it is the ultimate question, from what? There are only so many sources of energy and not all of them are good ideas like what was that grass that Busch said we could use to make fuel. The problem is some of these processes, although they work, are in actuality net loss processes. If it takes more energy to produce it than is produced then what is the sense in it?

Read the book "Beyond oil and gas : the Mehanol economy by George Olah & surya Prakash". It discuss some ways to produce fuels that will replace oil and gas. The most important thing is it talks about process which uses Carbondioxode and natural gas to make methanol.Methanol can be used to makegood eficincy fuel cells. Also it is possible to synthesise ehtylene from methanol. And from it all hydrocarbons that we use as fuel can be synthesised.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/09/14/business/AS_COM_TEC_Japan_Honda_Biofuel.php

Or just google for biofuel

The essential difficulty with coal gasification is that it is too energy inefficient - that is to say that the process requires more energy input to convert the raw material to the final product than is actually available tin the finished product. It's kind of a "why don't they eat cake, then?" situation.

BTW, those who suggest the use of electrical power for automobiles are often vittims of the same fallacy. Yes, electricity is a clean fuel at the end use, but the generation of electricity is not always clean, I always get a giggle out of Greens suggesting electric cars, and then saying that we just need more (clean) nuclear power plants to generate the electricity, when there's no way in hell that they would stand still for another nuke

Synthesising gasoline is not a good business (producing it requires more energy that can be obtained from it) unless you have someone who is going to pay its price. Suposse somebody design and engine or aplication that needs this special product (gas, battery, compressed air, nuclear combustible pellet (as on the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Neptun)) and it is decided that this is the way to go, them you will have the necesity to develop it and pay for it.

Synthetic oil is produced and consumed, even that is expensive, because its benefits are higher than its costs ( longer engine life, lower degradation of oil, less residual deposits etc. ). Most car makers use these oils in their top models or in all of them as BMW does.

We need to design and engineering to avoid disturbing our enviroment and work towards fixing the problems we have created so far, try to use less energy as possible, save vital resources as food, water, air, land and the life inside it... just look at the frog´s fate... entire world comunities are dissapearing in front of our eyes, at this very moment... then the mosquitoes prospere, so the ilness and everything star changing for the worse... our future is tied to the future of all the creatures in this world... what hapens to them is our responsabilty and we have the duty to save their future wich is the same we are going to leave, sooner or later... Regards